Movie review: ‘Abominable’ proves that a ‘for kids only’ rating would be a good idea

Ed Symkus More Content Now

Wednesday

Sep 25, 2019 at 11:08 AM

For a feature animated film that’s aimed directly at a very young audience (there are going to be very few adult viewers that aren’t glancing at their watches), it’s not surprising that so many formulaic boxes are ticked off (families are important, friends are important, wealthy people are evil). But it is surprising that so much of the film comes up short.

Take the title. A glance at the poster makes it clear that it’s a reference to the Abominable Snowman. But that term never comes up in the film. The first word does, when someone mentions an “abominable creature” (Will a 6-year-old know what “abominable” means?), but the creature here is properly called a yeti (Will a 6-year-old know what a yeti is?). Let’s stay with the yeti. It’s met, in the opening scene, in a science lab, from which it escapes - with evil scientists in pursuit (yes, scientists are bad, too). It makes it to the rooftops of some unnamed city (there’s Chinese signage everywhere; that’s our only clue), where it’s discovered by a young girl named Yi (Chloe Bennet) who spends time up there at night playing her violin and thinking about the loss of her father (right ... check off the dead parent box). The girl is lonely, the creature is frightened, and before you know it, she’s protecting him from those scientists (or are they just hunters working for a nasty wealthy guy?) in helicopters.

Also, why does this young girl have the deep, mature voice of an adult? Did no one think it was a bad idea to cast a woman in her mid-20s to voice a 15-year-old? Those young kids watching might not mind, but this adult viewer found it extremely distracting. There’s also lots of magic in the film, courtesy of the yeti (who can’t speak, but can hum, and who understands English perfectly). But his powers are never explained. He can make flowers grow, make fruit go super-sized, cause the earth to move like ocean waves, repair broken inanimate objects by touching them. There’s a post-movie conversation in my head. Young kid: “How did he make those blueberries get so big?” Parent: “It’s magic.” Young kid: “But how did he ...” Parent, louder this time: “I said it’s magic!”

On the plus side, “Abominable,” as most animated features are these days, is gorgeous to look at, and the script offers up a good sense of adventure as the story turns into one of Yi befriending her big furry snowball - who she takes to calling Everest after figuring out where he came from - and planning, despite the odds thrown at her, to get him back home. It moves from the city to the mountains to the desert to, of course, the Himalayas (site of Mount Everest).

But the story and the journey are cluttered with insufficiently developed characters and motivations. It’s understood that Yi is still in mourning over her dad and that playing her violin makes her happy because it reminds her of him, that she has dreams of traveling, and that she’s kind. But she has a little friend named Peng (Albert Tsai), who’s awfully reminiscent of little Russell in the film “Up” and Peng’s older cousin Jin (Tenzing Norgay Trainor), who has hints of being a romantic interest for Yi, but the script stops short of going beyond hints. The wealthy bad guy collector, Mr. Burnish (an over-the-top Eddie Izzard), owes a lot to another “Up” character, Charles Muntz. And the unnecessary presence of Yi’s mom and grandmother simply eat up screen time; they could have been mentioned in passing instead of being shown.

But that seems to be the motif of the film: It shows rather than tells its story. A flashback to what supposedly makes nasty Mr. Burnish tick is done with less explanation than is given to all of that magic. There’s plenty of pratfalling and slapstick, which successfully speaks for itself, and the overt simplicity of the plotline guarantees that everything is going to turn out well in the end (except for the bad guys), whether or not it makes any sense. For the undemanding 6-year-olds in the audience, who don’t need much more than a few laughs and some eye-popping visuals, that’s probably going to be enough.

Ed Symkus writes about movies for More Content Now. He can be reached at esymkus@rcn.com.